landscape – Page 32 – Ink, Yarn & Beer

Studies from Kautzky

After the disastrous lilies, I had a good think. I really am not a decorative painter at heart. What I love most are landscapes. The outdoors is to me the most exciting thing . . . mountains, water, trees. Thus, with this in mind, I pulled out the very first “how to” art book I ever bought, back when I was 16: Ways with Watercolor by Ted Kautzky. I still love this book and find his style and words soothing and thoughtful. To ease my frustration, I did two of his exercises. The first below is in 2 colors only, ultramarine blue and burnt umber.

The next one is in three colors: burnt umber, ultramarine blue, and Hooker’s Green.

Kautzky’s palette of colors is one with which I am comfortable and familiar, so it was very reaffirming to feel somewhat skilled after the lilies fiasco. That really upset my little apple cart!

Lowering Sky

A View from the Owens Valley

The Easter Sierra from Hwy 395

The Owens Valley has an interesting history. Essentially, Los Angeles, the city, took all its water for itself. It is also where the Manzanar Concentration Camp interred thousands of Japanese American citizens during the dark and scary days of World War II. While not the horrific camps of the German Nazis, these internment camps were still horrors in their own right, and a blight on America’s history of human rights.

On the Road to Bodie

We spent a day in Bodie, California, a silver-mining ghost town in the middle of the high desert in northern California off Hwy. 395. It’s a photographer’s paradise, a state park, and a place with a very interesting history. The dry air keeps it preserved – as preserved as it can be – and the drive out is lonely.

Waterfall Above Parker Lake

This is a telescopic shot from the shore of Parker Lake in the Eastern Sierra. Taken in mid-August, the ice and snow is still visible from the winter before. We were up around 9000 feet (guestimate), but the snow field and waterfall are certainly far higher than that.